Chef Magazine -
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Published on: 8/2/2007
Last Visited: 6/3/2008
Peggy Ryan translates her experience in the industry to the culinary classroom
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For Peggy Ryan, chef instructor at Kendall College in Chicago (www.kendall.edu), her balance of industry experience and people skills makes her a natural for both settings.
Ryan grew up on a farm about 100 miles south of Chicago.But instead of wanting to milk cows and feed chickens for a living, she had a desire to cook.In the 1970s, the only Chicago-area culinary school was Washburne Culinary Institute, which she admits she didn't know existed.But she knew of the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park, N.Y. So when she turned 18, she moved to Chicago to work in restaurants for a year and save up some money to attend the CIA.
Ryan first found herself working for the late Leslie Reis at Leslie's in Evanston, Ill., and then as Reis' sous chef at the highly acclaimed Café Provencal.Then, "life started to happen," Ryan says."I wanted to go to the CIA, but great opportunities presented themselves to me, and I was learning so much, I decided to continue working and never went to school."
Experience in the field
Reis, who could be called Ryan's first teacher, helped Ryan develop an affinity for Italian cuisine."Twenty-five years ago, there were mainly American-Italian-focused restaurants.But Leslie went to Italy regularly and would come back with stories of the wonderful regional Italian dishes she discovered during her travels," Ryan says.
Ryan eventually started making her own visits to Italy to see firsthand what Reis was experiencing.With her knowledge of regional Italian foods expanding, Ryan started working in the Italian restaurant Va Pensiero in Evanston, Ill., in 1988, and she became an owner two years later.Meanwhile, Kendall College, at that time located in Evanston, started to take notice of Ryan's growing reputation as a chef, particularly of her knowledge of Italian food, and asked her to serve on its advisory board and be a culinary judge at school events.She also began employing interns from the school at Va Pensiero.
As is often the case with running a restaurant, the lifestyle started to take its toll on Ryan.After a decade of ownership, she sold Va Pensiero."After 10 years, the realization sets in that this is the way life is going to be, and I wanted to spend more time with my kids," she says.
But she couldn't stay away for long.Ryan says, "Around 2002, I wanted to get back in the kitchen, but not as an owner and not wanting to work the long hours."So she approached Kendall's dean and mentioned to him if a teaching position ever opened up, to give her a call.It happened that the school had just been approached by the U.S. Navy to have its new recruits be trained on how to cook-and she took the position.Also, with 15 years of experience in preparing Italian food, Ryan was asked to start teaching regional Italian food classes at the college as well.
School at last
Five years later, Ryan is now the chef instructor of the Dining Room at Kendall College, the school's fine dining restaurant that is open to the public.She also continues to teach several electives, including Italian pastas, Cuisine of Italy and Cuisine of Tuscany, as well as Cuisine of the Mediterranean in the bachelor's program."Being the lunch chef instructor is the best of both worlds," Ryan says."I'm still a chef, creating menus, ordering product and running a restaurant, but I don't have the added stress of owning a restaurant."(Shown here: Slow-roasted veal osso buco, parsnip polenta, braised broccoli rabe and autumn mushroom and boar bacon ragout, from the Dining Room at Kendall College.)
Every 25 days, Ryan gets a new group of students.By the time the students get to her, they have learned everything they need to know about how to cook-but not in a professional setting.
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Ryan explains she finds teaching at Kendall and running the Dining Room a rewarding job."My job is to teach students a different skill set that rounds out their education and prepares them for the professional kitchen," she says."My job is to teach them how to be a professional and behave in a professional kitchen, how to respond to the executive chef, how to respect fellow chefs, how to work fast and how to handle pressure.
"If someone told me 10 years ago I'd be running a restaurant, getting a new crew every 25 days, and most of the people had no experience and I'd be teaching them at the same time," she says, laughing, "I would have said, ‘You're crazy.'"
Ryan says she finds similarities between running a restaurant and teaching."I never found owning and working in the restaurant boring.Every day brought new challenges and excitement," she says."I still get excited and have many challenges teaching in the Dining Room.The big difference, though, is the hours.Teaching allows me to spend most nights, weekends and holidays with my family."
For chefs looking to make a career change to teaching, Ryan advises that it takes more than cooking skills and the desire for better hours."Some people are fantastic technicians, but they have no people skills.To be a culinary instructor, you need to know how to cook, and you need to know how to relate to the students," she says.
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